ABC News is being publicly slaughtered by its own staff at the The New York Observer website, giving specific accusations of an ABC executive’s illegally hiring and firing without just cause, promoting based on whims, discriminating against homosexuals, blacks and sexually harassing of employees.

In reaction to these public allegations of a widespread, 20-year long hostile work environment by its executives, ABC News has launched a two-front defense: keep any other media outlets from reporting the story and refuse to launch an internal investigation.

Meanwhile executives at The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, are monitoring The Observer website constantly. “ABC’s own soap opera ‘General Hospital’ has nothing on this daily unfolding drama of ABC on this website. They click on it hourly to see the latest shocker,” a close source tells me.

The anonymous but public whistle blowing by ABC staff started last week in reaction to a puff piece in The New York Observer about ABC News Vice President Mimi Gurbst’s retiring to become a high school guidance counselor. The story enraged ABC staff past and present for, in their opinion, misrepresenting Gurbst as “cherished.” They commented on the story with riveting details about her reign of terror while running ABC’s news coverage operation. The anonymous allegations about Gurbst include: (more…)

If you’re a fan of schadenfreude – and who isn’t, as long as you’re not its object — don’t miss the Night of the Long Knives at ABC News, currently being conducted in public over at the the New York Observer.

“Ugly” isn’t the word to describe the hatchets that are out for former ABC News v.p. and senior producer Mimi Gurbst, who recently announced her forthcoming retirement from the failing news operation to become — wait for it — a high-school guidance counselor.

What provoked this tempest was a May 11 sendoff in the pages of the Observer by Felix Gillette:

In recent years, when she wasn’t putting together stories as a senior producer for ABC’s World News or helping to oversee global news-gathering operations as a network vice president, Mimi Gurbst liked to advise her colleagues on various ways to improve their personal and professional lives.

(more…)